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Who congratulated Putin on his election victory and what does it say about global alliances?

  • While the Russian election results were condemned in the west, the reaction across Asia, Africa and Latin America show a new global dynamic is emerging Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Brics summit in 2016. Photograph: Manish Swarup/AP

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West decries Putin's landslide election win

STORY: Western governments lined up to condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin's re-election on Monday (March 18), saying his victory was unfair and undemocratic.Here's EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell."...this election has been based on repression and intimidation."But China, India and North Korea congratulated the veteran Russian leader on extending his rule by a further six years.The contrasting reactions underscore the geopolitical fault lines that have gaped wider since Russia invaded Ukraine two years ago - triggering the deepest crisis in relations with the West since the end of the Cold War.The Kremlin dismissed the criticism, claiming the 87% of the vote won by Putin during the three-day election showed that the Russian people were consolidating around him.Ekaterina Schulmann is a political scientist at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin."You can't really keep a straight face and say ‘yes, we really suppose 87% of Russians voted either electronically or offline for the president.’ This is an impossible result. Again, it's absurd (...) So, whatever this electoral exercise was, the result of it does not represent the will of Russian people. We don't know what that will may be, had they been given a choice. But they have not been given a choice."Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the vote had no legitimacy.While France, Britain and others condemned the fact that Russia had held its election in occupied regions of Ukraine that it claims to have annexed during the war.Golos is the only Russian electoral watchdog independent of the authorities and was branded a "foreign agent" in 2013.It said that Putin's re-election was the most fraudulent and corrupt in the country's history, citing incidents of intimidation at polling stations.Reuters could not independently verify these incidents.Natalie Sabanadze is a senior research fellow at Chatham House in London."While Russia is waging war in Ukraine, Putin is waging a special operation inside Russia. And that for me is a manifestation of that, and after this 87%, I would expect greater repression inside Russia."In sharp contrast, Chinese President Xi Jinping said Beijing would maintain close communication with Moscow to promote the "no limits" partnership they agreed in 2022, just before Russia invaded Ukraine.Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi echoed that message, while North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi also stressed their desire for stronger bilateral relations with Russia.In Africa some newspapers saw Putin's re-election as reinforcing the stance of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, who have strengthened ties with Russia following coups in recent years at the expense of their traditional French and U.S. allies.
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